


Himitsu-Man

by soraflye (flitterfly5)



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flitterfly5/pseuds/soraflye
Summary: Nino meets an annoyingly persistent weirdo who dresses as a tiger-slash-giraffe and calls himself Himitsu-man.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is fiction.
> 
> Posted a long time ago on LJ.

  
They met in the public park, in an area secluded by trees.  
  
"I'm Himitsu-man," the strange guy had said, like it was supposed to be something impressive.  
  
Nino (who had gotten there first and therefore occupied the only bench) gave a snort. "You're an idiot. And a stranger. Stop talking to me."  
  
"No! I'm Himitsu-man!" the weirdo insisted. "I'm _your_ Himitsu. No one else can see or hear me."  
  
Nino's shrewd pupils made a disdainful sidelong sweep beneath his lashes, surveying the oversized yellow blob in front of him before coming to rest on the strangely glittering tiger mask tied around the man's face. Nope, no matter how hard he looked, the weirdo before him was clearly nothing more than a fashionably challenged but nevertheless human _man_. An ordinary human man. He snorted again.  
  
"What are you going to tell me next? That you have _superpowers_ or something?"  
  
The giraffe-slash-tiger-slash-man practically bounced up with excitement, nodding his masked head vigorously as his big mouth began a babble of nonsense. Clearly, all sarcasm was lost on him.  
  
"Of course I have powers! I spent years and years in training to get my Mirror-Man Invisibility! Yaarrghh!" He did a clumsy capering dance before striking a ridiculous pose in Nino's face, turning his head towards the gamer at the very last moment expectantly.  
  
 _Like a puppy that's just showed off a new trick and wants a pat from his master._ With an exasperated sigh, Nino removed his glasses and rubbed his temples, closing his eyes in vexation. _He's probably just some homeless clown looking to get a few yen... Well, the economy's certainly been hard on us all..._  
  
Grudgingly, he reached into his jacket for some loose coins.  
  
"Look, I don't have my wallet with me," he said, pulling the man's fabric paw towards him and pressing a couple of 100-yen pieces into the fuzzy palm. "This is all you're going to get. Now go away and stop bothering me."  
  
The strange man froze at the touch, and Nino could see the ridiculously large paw trembling even after he had released it from his grasp. Then, with a sniffle that wrinkled the thin cloth around his lips, he clumsily closed the big lumps of fabric that were supposed to be his fingers, clutched the coins close to his heart and darted off into the trees, an otherworldly golden cloud surrounding his head as the glitter on his mask seemed to melt into the sunlight around him.  
  
Nino just thought it was rather rude that he didn't even say thank you.  
  
"Whatever..." he muttered to himself, shaking open the newspaper he had left on his lap. "I've got better things to worry about than some homeless cosplay weirdo..."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino had never been good at anything. Unless you counted gaming. Or coming up with zinging one-liners. But those weren't really skill sets that one could put on a resume, and Nino's resume was already pathetically short. Just like the very few job interviews he was invited to. Not that it bothered him, personally. It wasn't his fault that none of his potential employers had a sense of humor, after all, and Ninomiya Kazunari would be damned before he started singing tunes of sycophancy just to jump through hoops for some stuffy corporate hierarchy.  
  
Besides, it wasn't like he really needed a job anyways. Unemployment suited him just fine. More time to hone his gaming skills, which actually provided quite a generous income in the form of tournament prize money. In fact, he was still sitting comfortably on the interest from his past winnings, and earned an additional royalty check every year for a rather authoritative gaming manual he had written back when he was a daydreaming college student. That pretty much covered his frugal expenditures.  
  
But it wasn't enough for his mother, who nagged him incessantly about getting a "real" job at every opportunity. Or for his grandfather, who insisted that he needed to start looking for a bride and producing some Ninomiya heirs. Even his sister gave him sidelong glances whenever they met, and deep down inside, Nino knew that they were all ashamed of him. _Gamer, otaku, jobless, and loveless, I'm quite the model for failed sons, aren't I?_  
  
Nino gave a wry smirk and told himself he didn't give a rat's fart about what his family thought of him. It wasn't strictly true, but he kept telling himself that anyway.  
  
"Nee-no-ni!"  
  
The gamer froze at the sound of that lilting, singsong voice. It was- no it couldn't be- but it totally was-  
  
"Cosplay weirdo?" he gaped in astonishment when he finally regained control of his body. "What the hell are _you_ doing in my bedroom?" He glanced around wildly. How did the stranger just appear out of nowhere?  
  
The loping figure swung a cheeky leg over Nino's couch. "I told you, I'm _your_ Himitsu. Naturally, I'm always going to stay by your side." He leaned back and intertwined two hands behind his masked head. "Say, shouldn't you be preparing for that job interview that begins in an hour?"  
  
Nino's mouth gaped even wider, if that was possible. "How did you-?"  
  
"You weren't planning on skipping, were you?" the stranger interrupted, all the while touching the various objects littered on Nino's couch as though he were a boy in a toy store. "Because job interviews are so much fun! I've been _dying_ to go on one for ages."  
  
He stretched all four of his long, yellow limbs and tilted the tiger masked head towards Nino beseechingly. For some reason, Nino knew he was smiling. And for some reason, that made all his alarm and anxiety go away. The stranger's eyes glittered at him expectantly from behind the mask. It was hard to discern their true color, but Nino thought they looked like chocolate, like two pools of warm, creamy chocolate.  
  
"You're one stupid weirdo, you know that?" he said, taking a step closer to the ridiculous figure on his couch. After all, who the hell in their right mind liked _job interviews_?  
  
The weirdo- what did he call himself again? Himitsu-man, was it?- merely bounced up from his position to wrap Nino in a stifling bear hug. A familiar cloud of golden glitter enveloped them, and Nino had never felt more warm in his life.  
  
The next thing he knew, he was walking out his apartment door in a suit and tie with a copy of his resume tucked neatly in his briefcase  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Himitsu-man had somehow landed Nino a job. A real job, like one where they gave you your own name cards and everything. Nino still didn't know exactly how it all worked out, because he was quite sure he had acted far from the expected behavior of a job-seeking young man during the interview. The interviewer (now his boss) was a man in his young thirties named Ohno Satoshi and Nino would normally have made merciless fun of a person who looked like that; Ohno was short, slouching, sleepy-eyed and when he opened his mouth, Nino saw that he even had a displaced tooth jutting into his mouth. He talked slowly, and half the time didn't seem to understand what was being said.  
  
Nino thought he was the most idiotic interviewer he had yet met, and was just about to start layering some snark into his answers when that silly Himitsu-man *accidentally* blew some papers off Ohno's desk to reveal several print designs for the new Puzzles & Dragons game interface. Nino's smirk was replaced by his jaw dropping like a ten pound stone.  
  
" _You_ designed the new Pazudora characters?" He knew his tone of incredulity was rude, but he wasn't really counting on getting the job anyways. All he knew was that the dark little man sitting there with the peeling, sunburnt skin and the perpetually clueless face was a goddamned _genius_.  
  
Ohno had looked at him curiously, his left hand scratching his right elbow and his whole body seemingly extremely uncomfortable in that stiff suit he was wearing.  
  
"We are a graphics design company, after all," he had said, still looking puzzled. But Nino noticed that the sleepy eyes had flicked towards his resume in that instant, and the fountain pen in the dark-skinned hands had made a light mark next to his name.  
  
Behind him, Himitsu-man was trying to flash Nino a thumbs up sign, but his bulky paws were not cooperating. Nino couldn't stifle a giggle as he stood up with Ohno at the end of the interview.  
  
"What's so funny?" Ohno asked, looking questioningly at the blank wall Nino's eyes were directed to.  
  
"Nothing," Nino replied with an easygoing grin. "I'm just excited to have met you, even if it's just this once."  
  
Two days later, he got an email from Ohno, welcoming him to the company. Himitsu was so proud of him he scattered golden glitter all over his apartment as he cavorted about doing what had to be the world's most cringe-worthy victory dance.  
  
Nino told him to shut up and quit being a nuisance, but deep down inside, his heart was tingling with pleasure.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Nino thought he'd seen his fair share of "failures at life," but it wasn't until he met Sakurai Sho that he realized there was a whole new meaning to the term. Sakurai, despite being two years his senior, was still an intern at the company. And the year Nino was hired was also the fourth year that Sakurai had been interning. Nino had looked askance at him when he heard that.  
  
"Aren't interns here usually undergrads?" he asked Sakurai. "What, did you fail to graduate four years in a row or something?"  
  
The man looked awkwardly at his feet and muttered something about using the restroom before scurrying off.  
  
"Nee-no-ni!"  
  
Nino whirled around the now empty office. He still wasn't completely used to the way the weirdo could just appear and disappear at the drop of a hat. Himitsu's voice held a hint of a pout. "Why are you being such a meanie today?"  
  
"Didn't I tell you to stop following me to work?" Nino growled back.  
  
"But I like following you." The baggy yellow giraffe-suit sat its shapeless butt squarely on Nino's new desk. "And besides, if I left you, no one would talk to you, which would make you all sulky, and then you'd sulk at me, which would make me sad and cry, and if I cry too much I could _die_."  
  
Nino pushed him off the desk unceremoniously and switched on his computer. He had no time for the melodramatics of some brain-addled idiot. Especially one that had a penchant for babbling like a brook.  
  
"I think Sho-chan really admires you, _ne_? He definitely looked like he had an admiring look in his eyes just now..."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?" snapped Nino, just a little bit irked by the adoring way Himitsu-man said _Sho-chan_. "I don't even know the guy!"  
  
"Oh but _he_ knows _you_! Everyone here has heard about the mysterious new guy who the boss hired after just a single ten-minute interview. The rumors are flying all round the water cooler!" Himitsu turned his head to one side and blinked both eyes hard in what Nino could only assume was a failed attempt at a cheeky wink.  
  
"And how would _you_ know what goes on around the water cooler?" The smaller man's eyes narrowed in suspicion.  
  
"My Himitsu Power, of course," answered the tiger mask with definite smugness. "I'm not an idiot like you think, you know. I know a lot of things."  
  
"Like what?" Nino challenged.  
  
"Like the fact that despite graduating top of his Economics class at Keio, Sho-chan is still slaving away here as a _design intern_ just so he can get close to and one day impress his sempai crush."  
  
"WHAT?" Nino's eyes widened in shock, but curiosity was also taking quick hold of him. "Who's the sempai crush?"  
  
"Ohno Satoshi." The lips behind the mask pouted sadly. "It's really tragic, you know. Because Sho-chan has zero artistic cells in his body. He's been here for four years and never _once_ has his work even made it to the boss's desk."  
  
"So why doesn't he just go find another job and impress Ohno in some other way?" Nino could not believe that someone who graduated from Keio could be _this_ stupid.  
  
Himitsu-man smiled and patted Nino's shoulder gently.  
  
"Devotion." His velvety giraffe-voice held a hint of something oddly melancholic. "Nee-no doesn't know what it's like, but it makes people do all sorts of things."  
  
Nino snorted dismissively, but as soon as Himitsu-man disappeared from his sight, he picked up the phone on his desk and looked up Sakurai's extension.  
  
"I'm new," he said when the call went through. "And I have no one to eat lunch with today."  
  
Sakurai had been so flustered all he could squeak out was a time and a place.  
  
He subsequently became the first official friend Nino had ever had in his entire life.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
One day, Nino woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of muffled sobbing. He sat up, flinging the covers from his body, and looked to the corner of the room where a familiar, amorphous shadow seemed to be emitting wispy tears of streaming gold glitter.  
  
"Himitsu-man?" Nino swung his legs over the bed and rushed towards the hunched blob of shaking fabric. "What are you crying these freakish tears for, you idiot?"  
  
He stared, briefly mesmerized by the delicately glowing clouds of gold that were beginning to enshroud both their bodies, until a strangled cry ripped out from behind the tiger mask and a pair of coarse fabric paws pulled him close so the masked head could continue its crying against his narrow chest.  
  
"Nee-no has a real friend now," he sobbed. "Nee-no might not need his Himitsu anymore soon."  
  
Fresh spurts of glitter sprayed all over Nino's washed out pajamas like an oddly weak fountain.  
  
"You're such a drama queen," the gamer grunted, but awkwardly wrapped an arm around the bulky costumed body nevertheless. "A silly, stupid drama queen."  
  
Himitsu-man hiccuped, and almost dislocated Nino's jaw when he suddenly raised his masked head to meet his eyes in a supplicating posture.  
  
"Can I hug Nee-no-ni to sleep tonight?"  
  
The glitter-clouds were still swathed around them, and in their gentle light Nino could see both his eyes reflected in the hopeful pupils behind the tiger mask. He hated physical intimacy, or at least that's what he told himself; he didn't actually have enough experience in these things to develop any meaningful aversion to it. But somehow, he didn't think it'd be _too_ bad to turn into Himitsu-man's temporary teddy bear for the night. No one would ever find out, anyway.  
  
"Fine."  
  
He scowled and stalked back to his bed, listening with a thump of secret pleasure as a patter of pawed feet followed him.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
That night, they lay in darkness long after the last golden cloud had faded away. Nino couldn't sleep.  
  
"Himitsu?" he whispered, half-hoping that there would be no response.  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
"Is it true what you said?" he gulped, hating how he had turned into a worrisome mother hen. "That if you cry too much, you could die?"  
  
There was a long pause, and Nino held his breath, a sudden nervousness taking hold of his throat. Then Himitsu gave a sudden giggle.  
  
"Why? Would Nee-no-ni miss me?" The tiger-giraffe snuggled in cheekily, digging his chin into Nino's shoulder.  
  
"You wish, weirdo." Nino slapped the tiger-face and turned his shoulders further away in annoyance at not getting a straight answer.  
  
He let the clumsy paws stay where they lay wrapped around his waist, though.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Matsumoto Jun worked in Marketing, and he was the kind of person Nino would normally shit a brick before getting caught within ten miles of. That is to say, the guy was one of those peacocks who dressed like he'd just walked off a Milanese runway, checked his reflection obsessively in every window walking down the street, and changed his hairstyle more often than a woman changed clothes. He was also purported to have dropped thirty thousand yen on one of those all-natural health diets that all the Hollywood starlets were supposedly on. Yes, thirty thousand. Now _that_ , to Nino, was just atrociously stupid.  
  
But if there was one thing Himitsu-man had taught him, it was that even the atrociously stupid people could be...well.. _un-stupidified_ once you got to know them well enough.  
  
Which was why he didn't turn this Matsumoto down when he was suddenly asked out to dinner one day. _Private_ just-the-two-of-them dinner.  
  
"You're paying." was all he said to the slightly hopeful, slightly nervous face hovering outside his cubicle.  
  
 _Really_ , he thought amusedly as Matsumoto broke into a sweating blush and then began panicking because he couldn't find oil-absorbent facial wipes in his pocket. _That face alone is already worth accepting this date for._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
That night, Himitsu-man didn't show up in his room. But Nino was tired anyway, so he didn't think much of it and collapsed straight on his bed after about two hours of battling virtual monsters on his DS. It felt strangely silent in his apartment without that thin high-pitched giggle in the background as he drifted off to sleep.  
  
 _Silly clown..._ he thought, drowsiness washing over him like a gentle tide. _Thought he'd be here. Thought he said he'd always be by my side..._  
  
Nino woke up the next day in a swathe of glittering golden clouds. Puzzled (and not entirely awake), he blinked around, adjusting to the light.  
  
"Himitsu?" he murmured through the golden haze. "You there?"  
  
No answer. Nino took a deep breath and watched as tiny wisps of glitter swirled past each other at the slight disturbance in air flow. A few tendrils slid up his nostrils and trickled down to the back of his throat, where something suddenly felt very hard and lumpy and difficult to swallow. Much like that capering fool who'd somehow managed to worm his way into snuggling him to sleep every night, and those cumbersome fabric arms that wrapped themselves around him like a weirdly comforting boa constrictor in the darkness.  
  
 _'Himitsu-man doesn't cry like other people, Nee-no-nee! Himitsu-man has Genki Blast Powers! Ready? Genki chyuuuuu~!'_  
  
"Silly clown," he muttered, swatting at the glittery clouds and letting the hollow echoes of that voice die away into the morning. "Why the hell'd you have to cry up a sea like this, then?"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Time passed, and things blossomed with Matsumoto. In one week, they had had their first kiss; in a fortnight, their first public hand-holding; and by their first month-aversary (Jun liked to keep track of these types of things), they were already sleeping together every night, usually in Jun's bed, with the taller man's chin resting lazily atop Nino's shy head, and their fingers intertwined over the silken covers.  
  
Nino liked Jun; he liked him a lot more than he would have believed possible when he first met him. True, the man was vain to a fault, but beneath all the designer clothing and the excessive expenditures was the gentlest, most detail-oriented person Nino had ever met. Jun just had a knack for _noticing_ things; he noticed when Nino's body gave the slightest of shivers and immediately fetched him a warm (and very ornate) shawl; he noticed when Nino's fridge had nothing but soon-to-expire eggs and Nino had woken up the next morning with not only a fridge full of fresh food, but also a steaming collection of creative egg dishes laid out on his breakfast table. Jun could read every movement in Nino's face and body, and silently he could fix every little thing in Nino's life. Even Nino's family approved of him. _Such an able young man,_ they had said. His grandfather didn't even object to the fact that he would never get a grandson to carry the Ninomiya line forth. _You're lucky Jun found you, Kazu_ , was all he had said, his wrinkled face all red with merriment.  
  
And Nino agreed. He felt incredibly lucky whenever Jun's leanly muscled arms brought him within that perfumed embrace, like fate had somehow been manipulated to suddenly deal him the best hand in the universe. And at times he would surrender himself completely to Jun, letting the man take charge of his body in whatever wild ways they could conceive of. Nino never thought he'd be the type to give up control over his own self, but with Jun, with good _dependable_ Jun, it was surprisingly easy.  
  
There was only one thing that he could never do with Jun. With some regret, Nino looked towards his bedroom door. As much as he adored Jun, he had not ever (and probably _would_ not ever) invited his handsome boyfriend into his bed. Not even once. Not even when they were at their horniest. He'd let Jun take him on his living room couch, on his dining room table, once even on his kitchen counter, but never in his bedroom. Never in that room where tears of glittering gold had been shed from behind a tiger mask, and never in that bed where another pair of arms had clumsily held him as he slept night after night before Jun had found him.  
  
Nino was happy with Jun, but sometimes he'd cock an ear up in the middle of the night, wondering if he'd be able to hear even the slightest echo of a breathy giggle and a singsong voice calling "Nee-no-ni!" in the darkness.  
  
It never came though.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Jun proposed after a year, with dinner, roses and all the perfect romantic gestures. _He loves me so much_ , Nino thought as he watched him slide a dazzling diamond onto his finger.  
  
"It's going to clank against my Wii controller whenever I press Y, you know."  
  
Jun just chuckled. "You could use a handicap."  
  
And just like that, Nino became an engaged man. He held his hand up, admiring the different colored rays of diffracted light that reflected off his newly adorned finger, and wondered how many Hollywood diets and Italian designer wear Jun had given up just to buy this ring.  
  
"You're calculating how much it cost, aren't you?" Jun's eyes were twinkling and Nino knew from the way his lips were pursed that he was itching to kiss him.  
  
"No," he answered softly. "Just how much you love me."  
  
He pulled the taller man's face down so that their foreheads met, and then their noses, and finally their lips. Still chuckling, Jun wasted no time in pressing their bodies together, his arousal already betrayed by a familiar hardness digging into Nino's slim hips.  
  
"Do I have permission to make hot, furious love to my new _fiance_?" he murmured against Nino's shivering lips, one hand already eagerly tugging at his belt buckle.  
  
Closing his eyes, Nino let himself relax into the powerful curve of his lover's body, and let his mind shut down in complete submission as dexterous fingers removed his clothes and danced across his bare skin.  
  
"Permission granted," he sighed longingly. "Do what you want, Jun."  
  
 _This man's going to be my husband_. Yet for some reason, all he could think about as Jun began thrusting into him was whether or not it'd be considered normal for image characters to be seen at weddings.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Himitsu-man reappeared just as Nino was finished tallying up the guest list to his Spring Wedding, where he would finally walk the aisle and surrender himself to his handsome Matsumoto. _One hundred and five guests._ Nino marked the last name in his planner book and massaged his neck wearily. _And they're all coming to celebrate our love._  
  
"Nee-no-ni."  
  
The voice was small, and the mask had lost its luster. But Nino's pulse quickened all the same, his eyes drinking in the sight of those dirty yellow arms and baggy yellow bottoms with a hunger he didn't even know he had. Himitsu-man looked like a wreck; his scarlet neck kerchief hung from his shoulders in two ripped fragments, and Nino saw little threadbare patches on the elbows and knuckle joints of the giraffe costume. The small man opened his mouth, not knowing what to say, and closed it again, staring blankly at his visitor.  
  
"I'm happy for you, Nee-no. You picked a good guy."  
  
The masked face was as inscrutable as ever, but Nino thought he saw something wet glistening from within the tiger eye holes. _Wet? No that can't be..._  
  
"My glitter's gone," Himitsu explained, catching the look on Nino's face. "I cried too much for my own good...and you..." He suddenly stopped himself, and swallowed a lump in his throat.  
  
"Anyways, I've come to say goodbye. It's time for me to disappear."  
  
He shuffled his feet awkwardly like a duck and turned his bulky yellow back on smaller, soon-to-be groom.  
  
Nino felt like he should say something, like a _thank-you_ , or an _I-missed-you_ , or perhaps something else along those lines. But he couldn't. His mouth was still gaping wide open like a retarded goldfish with its lips bumping the glass; a few minutes passed without either saying a word, and then Himitsu-man suddenly _giggled_ , though it was unlike any giggle Nino had heard him give before.  
  
"Look at me, standing here like I'm waiting for something!" he giggled, his ratty yellow suit rippling with his hollow laughter. "While you're standing there, waiting for me to leave!" He gave another weak trailing giggle, and bowed his masked head, preparing to disappear.  
  
"Wait, no!" Nino jumped up. He didn't know what he was feeling or what the tattoo his heart was beating against his ribs meant, but he _did_ know that he couldn't just let his Himitsu walk away like this.  
  
"You think I'm standing here right now, waiting for you to leave? Well, you're a real idiot, you know. I've been standing here for a whole year, looking over my shoulder every night, _waiting for you to show up!_ You said you'd always be by my side. You said you were _my_ Himitsu. And now, after a whole year of neither hide nor hair nor voice nor message from you, you can't just sayonara and disappear. I haven't even seen your face!"  
  
Himitsu-man froze, and for a few minutes, nothing in the room moved except for the tatters of the scarlet neck kerchief that rustled lightly against his muddied yellow chest.  
  
"You... you want to see my face?" The voice was tiny, as if the breath was being held together by nothing more than a gossamer strand of spider silk.  
  
Now that he was here, Nino really couldn't believe that he'd never even once asked what kind of face lay beneath the flimsy-looking tiger mask. Slowly, he approached the now familiar lump of yellow fabric, each step building a strange anticipation in his heart. When he was finally within an arm's reach of Himitsu-man, he raised a hand and gently unhooked the elastic band holding the mask to his Himitsu's face.  
  
"Turn around, Himitsu-man," he whispered softly.  
  
The strange man didn't budge. Nino tugged at one of his pawed hands.  
  
"Let me look at you. The real you."  
  
A beat of silence. And then...  
  
"You can't..."  
  
The clumsy giraffe shoulders suddenly began heaving up and down violently, fuzzy paws raised to cover the newly bare face and to soak up all the warm tears that trickled down the moonlit cheeks.  
  
"You c-can't look at my face! Just-just go away!" He buried his miserable face in his disproportionate paws again and continued his blubbering and whining.  
  
Nino flinched at Himitsu's harsh words. " _Go away! Go away!" I wonder if that's what I sounded like before I met Himitsu._ With a strange guilt in his throat, he moved closer to the giraffe-man, and wrapped his arms around the big yellow blob, feeling how surprisingly thin the body within the costume was.  
  
"Shhhhh... Himitsu... Shhhh..." The small man rocked the body in his arms back and forth in what he hoped was a soothing rhythm. "I'm here for you, and I won't go away."  
  
In the dimness, Himitsu-man's sobbing gradually evened out to little sniffles as Nino continued to rock and soothe him with touch and voice. "Shhh-Shhh-Shhh Himitsu... there we go, you're all calm now... I wish I could see your face though. I wish you'd let me wipe those tears and trace my fingers over those lips. Wouldn't you let me do that?"  
  
"No," Himitsu whined piteously. "Himitsu-man ends at midnight, and if you see my face, you won't be able to forget me."  
  
"Silly idiot, I'll never forget you whether I see your face or not." Nino ran a hand blindly down the contours of that Himitsu's nose. "Turn around," he said again.  
  
Himitsu-man didn't move.  
  
"You'll forget me in an hour, Nee-no. And in an hour I'm going to cease existing." He toed a rough spot on Nino's carpet with his huge pawed foot. "A Himitsu can't survive long after his glitter is spent... Ah-!" He gasped in shock as he felt Nino's arms suddenly tighten around his body. "What are you doing, Nee-no? Sto-stop it, stop turning me around, you baka! You can't see - you're not _allowed_ to see my face! It'll haunt you, and you can't- not when your life's just about to begin unfolding..."  
  
"Quiet, Himitsu! If all the time you have left is an hour, then I want to at least do this."  
  
Nino's eyes were shut tightly, and Himitsu-man fell silent as his pudgy hands finally guided his head to face him full on. They both took a deep breath, feeling the invisible tension that seemed to draw them closer and closer together... until their lips met for the first time, chastely at first, but then more passionate as the final desperation seized them both.  
  
Nino's eyes were still closed when they drew apart, warm tears escaping from under his eyelids like rain down a windowpane. He kept them closed and held onto his Himitsu's thinning hand. He wouldn't open them until he felt the bulky paw dissipate into nothingness. He promised himself that. _Let me just sit here with him, hand in paw, right up to the very end._  
  
"You spent all your tears on me, didn't you?"  
  
Himitsu squeezed his hand tighter, and Nino shivered, already feeling the coarse fibers on that paw waning closer and closer to thin air.  
  
"Well, I was always a silly idiot," the diminishing voice said. " _Your_ silly idiot."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
END

 


End file.
